Wood three-peats at Bayfest in Port Rowan
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Port Rowan's Aubrey Wood, 10, is a seasoned Bayfest Build-A-Boat By The Bay racer.
Wood won her first championship at the age of 8 during the 2nd annual Bayfest Build-A-Boat competition (2014) in Port Rowan, finishing several boat lengths ahead in the final. She defended her title in 2015 with Black Pearl II, but it was closer - she won by one boat length.
This year, Saturday afternoon's final was even closer.
"It was harder," said Wood.
She won again, but it was 'touch and go', and she eventually crossed the finish line about four feet (half of a boat length) ahead of her nearest competitors.
"It was the snow cone she had before the race," Rick Wood smiled. "The red snow cone."
After three consecutive Build-A-Boat By The Bay championships, Aubrey is considering taking a break.
"I'm not sure," she said when asked how long she could keep her streak alive. "I'm not sure if I'm going to do it next year. It just keeps getting harder and harder. I don't know... but I think I'm going to let someone else win next year."
"You say that now but you'll be back again next year," Rick smiled.
The Black Pearl III, designed and built by Rick with assistance from Aubrey, was a slight improvement on previous builds, boasting lower 'walls.'
"A little easier to paddle," said Rick, who watched the races from the shore. "But easier to sink, too, if you get it rocking."
Her closest competition was a pair of Port Rowan firefighters from Norfolk Station 9, who last year immediately sunk at the dock.
"Big improvement from last year," said firefighter Wyatt Barry, who also competed in the inaugural 2013 boat races with Aiden Shaddick.
"It was a failure last year," Barry laughed. "This year we improved a little bit."
"From dead last to second, not bad," his racing teammate nodded, noting the lack of a keel might have made the difference. "We had to slow down four or five times to straighten it out. We'll change that for next year."
This year the firefighters had a wider boat and curved bow, with fellow Port Rowan firefighter Ryan Mercier assisting in the 'building pit', a process that started at 9:30 .m.
Some boats had more luck than others Saturday. One boat tipped over in each of the three preliminary heats.
Kris Coulombe from Port Rowan and Mark Smith of London teamed up to make a diamond-shape 'canoe', starting and ending with V-shape wedges, widest at midship. Streamlined, light and fast, they hoped.
"Because canoes are so efficient... they work right?" said Coulombe. "We didn't get too far."
"Top heavy," said Smith.
Their canoe, which started tipping as soon as Coulombe entered the bow, went all the way over as soon as Smith joined him in the stern, despite attempts to use the dock to keep it steady.
"Because we're bigger guys, we thought deeper would be better," said Coulombe. "Everyone does the same design, but we thought maybe this would work. But it was so rocky that we couldn't keep it upright."
It turned out they didn't need so much freeboard.
"The waterline was here," said Smith, surprised by how low it was.
"Half of what we thought it would be," said Coulombe. "It's hard to tell."
"A third of what I thought," said Smith.
"But it's amazing how much water it kept out, there's gaps like 'this' in our joints," said Coulombe. "It's duct taped, and there's this tarp material. And it didn't leak - Red Green was right."
"There was only one leak and that was right here in the corner," said Smith. "And the tarp has lots of holes in it."
"It was good - it was fun," said Coulombe, summing up their Build-A-Boat experience.
To improve on the design next time he said they would likely try a punt style.
"Maybe a tilted bow in the front next time and a square back, and definitely wider to give us a little more stability."
"Definitely not as deep," said Smith. "A foot deep would be enough."
"Our paddles didn't even get wet," Coulombe laughed.
Albert House from Acton and Daniel Wray of Brantford, went with a more traditional Build-A-Boat style. But they didn't have much more success than Coulombe and Smith. House and Wray tipped at the dock in their first attempt. Wray returned for a later heat, solo, and got further, but splashed down maybe 20-30 feet from the dock.
"We never got started, as soon as we got in the boat..." said House, "we sunk."
"It was fun, really fun," said Wray, still wet from two 'swims' in the harbour.
"It was hard to balance, paddling. When I (leaned) this way with the paddle, I went in the water."
"We just flipped right away," said House.
"It was too tall," he said, noting the seats were too high and their centre of gravity needed to be much lower in the boat. "Next year we'll know better."